Tuesday, December 20, 2011

The United States has demanded that Iran release "without delay" a CIA spy who was recently detained in the country and who confessed to being commissioned by the US to infiltrate Iran's intelligence circles.

Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, CIA

On December 17, Iran's Intelligence Ministry announced the capture of an American CIA agent of Iranian decent, foiling an intricate US plot to carry out further espionage activities in the Islamic Republic following the capture of an American spy drone in northeastern Iran.

In a televised confession, broadcast on the Iranian television on Sunday night, the US intelligence operative, Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, said he joined the US Army in 2001 and underwent decade-long intelligence training.

He added that he was sent to the US-run Bagram Air Base in eastern Afghanistan and given access to classified intelligence before flying to Tehran.

US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland announced on Monday that the US had requested access to Hekmati through the embassy of Switzerland, which maintains a US interest section in Tehran in the absence of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

"We call on the Iranian government to grant the Swiss protecting power immediate access to him and release (him) without delay," Nuland told reporters.

Hekmati could wind up like this thanks to CIA abandonment

She claimed that the family of the detained US spy first reported his detention in September and that the State Department has offered the relatives consular assistance.

Hekmati served with the elite US Marines as an Arabic translator, and travelled to Iran some four months ago, said his father, adding that Amir was born in the State of Arizona in southwestern US and joined the Marines after he got his high school diploma.

This is not the first time Iran arrests CIA spies. On May 30, members of a CIA espionage and sabotage network were arrested by the Iranian Intelligence Ministry.

On November 24, Iran announced the arrest of a dozen other CIA spies, who were found to have been on a mission to sabotage the country's nuclear facilities and other important compounds.

Another CIA espionage network with 12 members was busted in Iran and Lebanon in cooperation with the Lebanese resistance movement of Hezbollah.

SF/MB/HJL

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But Tehran suggested it was not entirely happy with the pressure Arab states had brought to bear on Damascus, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saying their action towards Syria was "like a joke".

Amir Abdollahian told the Arabic language television network Al-Alam that "Iran's official stance regarding Syria and the Arab League plan is that whatever Bashar al-Assad deems as acceptable, we would approve of and accept."

He added that the Arab League plan "contains many of the points Iran was also looking at," even if not all concerns were addressed.

Ahmadinejad, though, criticized Arab nations for the way they had been treating Syria.

"Certain regional countries carry out acts which Iran considers to be more like a joke," Ahmadinejad said.

"Some regional countries, which have never held an election, have come together and pass resolutions against another country saying 'Why don't you hold an election'?" he said.

Ahmadinejad and Assad

Syria on Monday signed an agreement to allow foreign observers in to monitor the implementation of the Arab League plan designed to halt violence sparked by terrorist groups in the country.

Syria has been experiencing unrest since mid-March with organized attacks by well-armed gangs against Syrian police forces and border guards being reported across the country.

Hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed, when some protest rallies turned into armed clashes.

The government blames outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad.

In October, calm was eventually restored in the Arab state after President Bashar al-Assad started a reform initiative in the country, but the US and Israeli plots could spark some new unrests in certain parts of the country.

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Fear of fake terrorism as university prepares to publish key details: The editor made this prediction in 1997 in Brevig Mission Alaska and has been reporting on it since in the hope someone will wake up

The Independent
By Steve Connor
12/20/2011

A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.

"Dr. Death" Johann Hultin dug up H5N1 in Alaska, 1997

The discovery has prompted fears within the US Government that the knowledge will fall into the hands of terrorists wanting to use it as a bio-weapon of mass destruction.

Some scientists are questioning whether the research should ever have been undertaken in a university laboratory, instead of at a military facility.

The US Government is now taking advice on whether the information is too dangerous to be published.

"The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive," a senior scientific adviser to the US Government told The Independent, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Dutch scientists carried out the controversial research to discover how easy it was to genetically mutate H5N1 into a highly infectious "airborne" strain of human flu. They believe that the knowledge gained will be vital for the development of new vaccines and drugs.

But critics say the scientists have endangered the world by creating a highly dangerous form of flu which could escape from the laboratory – as well as opening a Pandora's box for fanatical terrorists wishing to make a bio-weapon.

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed hundreds of millions of birds since it first appeared in 1996, but has so far infected only about 600 people who came into direct contact with infected poultry.

What makes H5N1 so dangerous, though, is that it has killed about 60 per cent of those it has infected, making it one of the most lethal known forms of influenza in modern history – a deadliness moderated only by its inability (so far) to spread easily through airborne water droplets.

Scientists are in little doubt that the newly created strain of H5N1 – resulting from just five mutations in two key genes – has the potential to cause a devastating human pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people. The study was carried out on ferrets, which when infected with influenza are the best animal "model" of the human disease.

The details of the study are so sensitive that they are being scrutinised by the US Government's own National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which is understood to have advised American officials that key parts of the scientific paper should be redacted to prevent terrorists from using the information to reverse-engineer their own lethal strain of flu virus.

In an unprecedented move, the Biosecurity board is believed to have told the US Government that there is a serious possibility of potentially dangerous information being misused if the full genetic sequence of the mutated H5N1 virus were to be published in open scientific literature.

A senior source close to the Biosecurity board, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Independent that the National Institutes of Health, which funded the work, is about to make a decision on how much of the scientific paper on the H5N1 super strain should be published, and how much held back.

"There are areas of science where information needs to be controlled," the scientist said. "The most extreme examples are, for instance, how to make a nuclear weapon or any weapon that is going to be used primarily to kill people. The life sciences really haven't encountered this situation before. It's really a new age."

The study was carried out by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, where the mutated virus is stored under lock and key, but without armed guards, in a basement building.

Dr Fouchier, who declined to answer questions until a decision is made on publication, said in a statement released on the university's website that it only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus into a form that could spread more easily between humans.

"Old" H5N1 is present in Indonesia and other ASEAN countries

"We have discovered that this is indeed possible, and more easily than previously thought. In the laboratory, it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can easily be rapidly spread through the air," Dr Fouchier said. "This process could also take place in a natural setting.

"We know which mutation to watch for in the case of an outbreak and we can then stop the outbreak before it is too late. Furthermore, the finding will help in the timely development of vaccinations and medication."

A second, independent team of researchers led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the universities of Wisconsin and Tokyo is understood to have carried out similar work with similar results, which has underlined how easy it is to create the super virus with a combination of deliberate mutations and random genetic changes brought about by passing avian flu manually from the nose of one ferret to another.

"It's scary from a number of different angles. You want to have the vaccines and therapeutics in place, and you need to have a much information as you can about a particular virus, but you also worry about it from a biosecurity perspective."

Yoshihiro Kawaoka

The Dutch virologist started as an expert in HIV, having received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1995. After research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, he began a new career in the virology department at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, studying the molecular biology of the influenza A virus.

At a conference in Malta in September, he described his work as something that was "really, really stupid," but ultimately useful for the development of vaccines.

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“Our war there will be over. All of our troops will be out of Iraq,” President Barack Obama said in his Dec. 17 weekly radio address.

But while combat troops are leaving, for now at least, the U.S. government is creating a staff of 16,000 for its newly constructed embassy in the heart of Baghdad. Although Iraq has only 28 million people, the new U.S. embassy is the largest in the world. It is a massive compound that is one and a half square miles-—an enormous complex of 22 buildings and the size of 94 football fields. Half of the 16,000-person staff will consist of a private military army made up of mercenaries under the control of the State Department. The State Department budget for the embassy is estimated at $25-30 billion over the next five years.

Obama's lost "war," U.S. retreats from Iraq

In addition, the Pentagon retains a vast network of bases, sea and air power surrounding Iraq. Washington’s intention clearly is to dominate Iraq for many years to come in a colonial-type relationship. Iraq possesses the second largest oil reserves in the world.

Obama's speech was the latest in a series of appearances seeking to bolster the president’s re-election prospects by associating himself with “the end of the war in Iraq.”

The dishonesty of this presentation would be considered breathtaking except for the fact that his deception fits exactly into the pattern of lies and deceit practiced by all other Democrats and Republicans who have served as the CEO of the U.S. imperialist state.

While trying to ingratiate himself with the service members, veterans and their families, Obama vastly underestimated the real damage done to them, stating that “tens of thousands have been wounded.”

The official Pentagon figure of U.S. wounded is around 32,000. But a Brown University 2011 study reported that, of the 1.25 million service members who had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan at that time, nearly half had filed disability claims—in others words, 600,000, a big majority Iraq veterans. Nor did the president mention that many thousands of returning vets are now homeless, living in the streets—a number that grows daily.

No mention either that the war in Iraq has already cost more than a trillion dollars and will likely end up costing more than $3 trillion in the end due to long-term interest, disability and health cost.

Iraqi flag flies over U.S. military bugging out

But the most glaring omission was the catastrophic impact of the war on Iraq and its people. “For nearly nine years, our nation has been at war in Iraq,” said Obama. In reality, the war in Iraq has been going on for more than two decades: The 1991 “Desert Storm” destruction of the country’s infrastructure and a lethal 13-year sanctions blockade preceded the 2003 invasion and occupation.

More than two million Iraqis have died as a result of war and sanctions, an estimated 4.5 million have been displaced and an unknown number, but one which must be counted in the millions, wounded. There are over one million widows in Iraq. All this in a country of just 28 million people.

The U.S. occupiers disbanded the entire government and shut down all vital service systems, such as health care and food distribution. The occupation deliberately pitted religious and ethnic groups against each other, using the classic methods of colonial divide-and-rule. This policy greatly exacerbated sectarian violence that took a toll in the hundreds of thousands and continues to plague Iraq today. A once relatively stable society was ripped to shreds.

There is not a single reference in the president’s proclamation about the horrific crimes committed against Iraq. Just colonialist-style statements like, “Iraq’s future will be in the hands of its own people.” As if the U.S. occupation had, instead of inflicting untold destruction, been a training session for the Iraqi people in self-government.

Iraq had been an independent country for 45 years after kicking out the British colonizers in 1958, and was one of the most economically and socially advanced countries in the Arab world prior to the 1991 war.

Despite all that they have suffered, the Iraqi people have a long and proud history of struggle against imperialism and injustice, a struggle that will continue.

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Heat on Obama criminal administration growing exponentially; more Iraq/Afghanistan war crimes being reported by U.S. servicemen and women

GRTV
12/20/2011

Announcing the Iraq war was ended, Barack Obama told US troops on 14 December 2011, "The United States military is the finest fighting force in the history of the world."

Some U.S. units leave Iraq in the dust

What he didn't say is that since 1945 the US military has been directly responsible for the deaths of over 10 million people and that America has in that time overthrown 50 governments, including democracies, and intervened in at least 30 more.

John Pilger has something to say about that.

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A senior American analyst says US withdrawal from Iraq was the result of Iran's clever strategy to prevent Washington from using Iraq to dominate the Middle East.

Gareth Porter noted in an article published on the Global Research website that despite claims mad e by some US officials that the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq was a success, it was actually the result of “a clever strategy of deception and diplomacy adopted by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in cooperation with Iran.”

Iraqi flag raised, American supposedly folded

“[US] Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's suggestion that the end of the US troops presence in Iraq is part of a US military success story ignores the fact that the [former US President] George W. Bush administration and the US military had planned to maintain a semi-permanent military presence in Iraq,” he added.

Porter stated that the central element of the Maliki-Iran strategy was the common interest that Maliki, Iran and the Iraqi anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr shared in ending the US occupation.

According to the article, Sadr had promised to support Maliki provided that the latter showed commitment to obtain a time schedule for US withdrawal from Iraq.

As a result, he added, a draft national reconciliation plan, which circulated among Iraqi political groups in early June 2006, included agreement on "a time schedule to pull out the troops from Iraq." Maliki wanted foreign troops reduced by more than 30,000 to under 100,000 by the end of 2006 and the withdrawal of "most of the remaining troops" by end of the 2007.

George W. Bush - War Criminal

Bush, however, rejected the idea of a withdrawal timetable after a quick trip to Baghdad and senior administration officials began leaking to reporters plans for maintaining "a near-permanent presence" in Iraq, including the control of four major bases.

It was then, Porter says, that Maliki sent Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari to Washington to dangle the bait of an agreement on troops before then Vice President Dick Cheney.

Zebari urged Cheney to begin negotiating US military presence in order to reduce the odds of an abrupt withdrawal that would play into the hands of the Iranians.

Dick Cheney - War Criminal

Maliki's National Security Adviser Rubaie also told then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in September 2007 that the Iraqi prime minister wanted a "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA)” that would allow US forces to remain in Iraq.

Confident that it was going to get a South Korea-style SOFA, the Bush administration gave the Iraqi government a draft on March 7, 2008 that provided for no limit on the number of US troops or the duration of their presence.

Sadr's Mahdi army then indicated its indignation at a possible agreement between Iraq and US with its forces taking up positions in Iraq's southern port city of Basra.

Condoleeza Rice - War Criminal

Iran then entered the game to prevent, in cooperation with the Iraqi government, possible US military operations against Sadr's Mahdi Army and to reach an agreement with Sadr on ending the Mahdi Army's role in return for Maliki's assurance to demand complete withdrawal of US forces.

Tehran also intervened to help the Iraqi government to negotiate a ceasefire with Sadr. The timing of each political diplomatic move by Maliki, Porter noted, was determined in discussions between him and top Iranian officials.

Just two days after returning from a visit to Tehran in June 2008, Maliki complained publicly about US demands for indefinite military presence in the country and in July, he openly demanded the complete withdrawal of US troops on a timetable.

Colin Powell - War Criminal

Although Bush was shocked at first and decided to reject withdrawal demand, it did not take long before he realized that the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, who was then far ahead of Republican John McCain, would accept the same or an even faster withdrawal timetable.

As a result, Bush decided in October to sign the draft agreement pledging withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011.

The US military's ambitious plans to use Iraq to dominate the Middle East, Porter concluded, were thus foiled by the Iraqi government and the US officials were clueless about what was happening until it was too late.

SS/HGH

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RESCUERS have battled high waves as they search for 200 asylum seekers feared dead after their overcrowded ship, headed for Australia, sank off Indonesia's main island of Java.

So far only 33 people have been plucked alive from the choppy waters.

Two were children, aged eight and 10, found clinging to the broken debris of the boat five hours after the accident on Saturday.

Indonesian authorities rescue migrant children

``It's really a miracle they made it,'' said Kelik Enggar Purwanto, a member of the search and rescue team, as horrifying accounts emerged of the disaster.

Nearly 250 people fleeing economic and political hardship in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Turkey were trying to reach Australia in search of a better life when they ran into a powerful storm 32 km off Java's southern coast.

After being slammed by a three-metre-high wave, the fibreglass ship - carrying more than twice its capacity - broke apart, survivors said, disappearing tail first into the dark waters.

Survivors claim the captain and crew donned lifejackets and saved themselves, leaving the asylum seekers to fend for themselves in the raging seas.

Soon after, 25-year-old local fisherman, Jambe, spotted several dark dots from his own tiny wooden fishing vessel and decided to investigate.

Survivors from the sinking

He and his three-member crew were horrified at what they found: more than 100 hysterical and exhausted people clinging to anything that floated.

Survivors immediately started racing toward them.

``They were all fighting, scrambling to get into my boat,'' Jambe told AP, adding there was only room for 10.

In the end he managed to get 25 on board, many of them injured and all begging for water to drink.
Those left behind were screaming and crying.

``I'm so sad ... I feel so guilty, but there were just too many of them,'' said Jambe, who like many Indonesians uses only one name. ``I was worried if we took any more we'd sink, too.''

Indonesia, a sprawling nation of 240 million people, has more than 18,000 islands and thousands of kilometres of unpatrolled coastline, making it a key transit point for smuggling migrants.

Many risk a dangerous journey on rickety boats in hopes of getting to Australia, where they face years in crowded detention facilities. Australia's harsh immigration policy has loosened up in recent months, however.

Survivors being given medical treatment, food

Those on the ship that sank on Saturday had passed through Indonesia's capital, Jakarta, days earlier without any legal immigration documents, according to police.

An unidentified group loaded them onto four buses and took them to a port, promising to get them to Christmas Island.

Local television showed half a dozen survivors at a shelter in Trenggalek, the Javanese town closest to the scene of the sinking, some with dazed, empty expressions as they sat on the floor drinking and eating.

Several others were taken to a nearby hospital in critical condition.

Khadzim Huzen, a 30-year-old Afghan, told AP that after the big wave hit, the ship started tipping into the water, and everyone rushed to the front.

A fight broke out for life jackets.

There were only 25, he said, and nine already had been taken by the crew.

``In the end, as everything was being swallowed up by the water, we just grabbed hold of anything we could,'' he said. ``We formed small groups in the water and tried to help each other stay afloat.''

At Prigi, the nearest port, several members of the national search and rescue team were getting ready to head out to sea, empty body bags stacked up on the deck, local television footage showed.

Survivors picked up at sea

Lieutenant Alwi Mudzakir, a maritime police officer, said so far 33 people have been rescued, many suffering from severe dehydration and exhaustion.

He was worried - as the hours passed - that no one else would be found alive.

Weather was bad on Sunday and four fishing boats, two helicopters and a navy ship already involved in the operation were battling four-metre-high waves.

``They have scoured an 80-km radius but haven't found anything,'' Mudzakir said, adding that currents were very strong.

There were about 250 asylum seekers crammed on the boat, which capsized off the Indonesian island of Java, as refugees panicked while it rocked in 4m waves.

"The captain and six crew took the life vests and started swimming away," Saed Mohammad Zia, 18, of Pakistan said.

"They were all from Indonesia. We lost sight of them in the big waves and we never saw them again.

"We don't know if they were rescued."

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Egyptian police no different from all police: cowards who attack in packs with superior weaponry, beat, molest, rape women, kill old men and children

Daily Mail
By Inderdeep Bains
12/18/2011

After being viciously beaten by a 10-strong mob of Egyptian male soldiers, this woman lies helplessly on the ground as her shirt is ripped from her body and a man kicks her with full force in her exposed chest.

Moments earlier she had been struck countless times in the head and body with metal batons, not content with the brutal beating delivered by his fellow soldier, one man stamped on her head repeatedly.

Coward Egyptian pigs savagely beat, drag by hair female protester

She feebly tried to shield her head from the relentless blows with her hands.

But she was knocked unconscious in the shameful attack and left lying motionless as the military men mindlessly continued to beat her limp and half-naked body.

Before she was set upon by the guards, three men appeared to carry her as they tried to flee the approaching military.

But they were too slow and the soldiers caught up with them, capturing the women and knocking one of the men to the ground.

The two other men were forced to abandoned their fellow protestors and continued running, looking helplessly back at the two they left behind being relentlessly attacked as they lay on the ground.

This is just one of the hundreds of shameful injustices seen in Cairo's Tahrir Square where Egypt's military took a dramatically heavy hand on Saturday to crush protests against its rule.

Aya Emad told the AP that troops dragged her by her headscarf and hair into the Cabinet headquarters. The 24-year-old said soldiers kicked her on the ground, an officer shocked her with an electrical prod and another slapped her on the face, leaving her nose broken and her arm in a sling.

Outnumbered: This woman screams in pain as she is surrounded by five male soldiers

during protests in the Egyptian capital and beaten with poles (Click images to enlarge)

Mona Seif, an activist who was briefly detained Friday, said she saw an officer repeatedly slapping a detained old woman in the face.

'It was a humiliating scene,' Seif told the private TV network Al-Nahar. 'I have never seen this in my life.'

In Bahrain a similar pictured was emerging with a video clip showing a female human rights activist being hit by a policewoman during clashes between police and anti-government protestors.

Brutally injured: This woman is left barely conscious and splattered in blood

Police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama where several women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road.

After nearly 48 hours of continuous fighting in Egypt's capital more than 300 were left injured and nine dead, many of them shot dead.

The most sustained crackdown yet is likely a sign that the generals who took power after the February ouster of Hosni Mubarak are confident that the Egyptian public is on its side after two rounds of widely acclaimed parliament elections, that Islamist parties winning the vote will stay out of the fight while pro-democracy protesters become more isolated.

Egyptian cops arrest, drag woman protester down the street by her hair

'Do they think this is manly?' Toqa Nosseir, a 19-year old student, said of the attacks on women. 'Where is the dignity?'

Nosseir joined the protest over her parents' objections because she couldn't tolerate the clashes she had seen.

Egypt's new, military-appointed interim prime minister defended the military, denying it shot protesters. He said gunshot deaths were caused by other attackers he didn't identify.

He accused the protesters of being 'anti-revolution.'

The main street between Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the anti-Mubarak protests, and the parliament and Cabinet buildings where the clashes began early the previous morning looked like a war zone on Saturday.

Military police on rooftops pelting protesters below with stones and firebombs and launched truncheon-swinging assaults to drive the crowds back.

Young activists put helmets or buckets on their heads or grabbed sheets of concrete and even satellite dishes as protection against the stones hailing down from the roofs.

The streets were strewn with chunks of concrete, stones ,broken glass, burned furniture and peddlers' carts as clashes continued to rage after nightfall Saturday.

The clashes began early on Friday with a military assault on a 3-week-old sit-in outside the Cabinet building by protesters demanding the military hand over power immediately to civilians.

More than a week of heavy fighting erupted in November, leaving more than 40 dead – but that was largely between police and protesters, with the military keeping a low profile.

In the afternoon, military police charged into Tahrir, swinging truncheons and long sticks, briefly chasing out protesters and setting fire to their tents.

They trashed a field hospital set up by protesters, swept into buildings where television crews were filming and briefly detained journalists. They tossed the camera and equipment of an Al-Jazeera TV crew off the balcony of a building.

A woman shouts anti-government slogans as she stands in tear gas fired by soldiers

A journalist who was briefly detained told The Associated Press that he was beaten up with sticks and fists while being led to into the parliament building. Inside, he saw a group of detained young men and one woman.

Each was surrounded by six or seven soldiers beating him or her with sticks or steel bars or giving electrical shocks with prods.

As night fell in Tahrir, clashes continued around a concrete wall that the military erected to block the avenue from Tahrir to parliament.

In Bahrain, Zainab al-Khawaja, 27, was arrested and dragged across the floor by her handcuffs after police fired teargas to break up a demonstration by several hundred people on the outskirts of the capital, Manama.

Ms. al-Khawaja and several other women staged a sit-in protest trying to block a main road. The other women fled the scene but Ms al-Khawaja refused.

Riot police fired tear-gas at the women, with dozens requiring hospital treatment after the incident.

A report by a panel of human rights experts in November found that Bahraini security forces had used excessive forces and carried out the systematic abuse of prisoners, including torture, when the regime sent in troops to crush the uprising in March.

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Obama, congress totally, completely insane; result will be more aggression, attacks, hatred against Americans worldwide

Agencies
12/20/2011

The United States has put forward plans to station Navy combat ships in Singapore and has also been considering more deployments to the Philippines and Thailand.

Obama doctrine: Act insane, become feared, hated occupier

Asian ports are set to be used more frequently as US officials consider a greater presence in the region.

According to Press TV, US Admiral Jonathan Greenert has stated in an academic article that "several" combat ships will be stationed in Singapore, with the US Navy relying more on host-nation ports where ships, aircraft and crews can "refuel, rest, resupply and repair while deployed."

In his article Greenert says the US could also increase the deployment of aircraft to the Philippines and Thailand in order to track for submarines.

Already, US President Barack Obama has announced that the United States will post up to 2,500 marines in Darwin, Australia, by 2016.

The US, which already has approximately 70,000 troops stationed in Japan and South Korea, has been criticised by some countries for encroaching on new territory.

Russia has criticised the US Military for straying to close to its borders, with the establishment of missile array systems in Poland and Romania.

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My name is John Needham. I am a member of Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 2nd Infantry division, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, (BCo,2-12INF,2BCT,2ID . I deployed with my unit to Iraq from October 2006 until October 2007 when I was medically evacuated for physical and mental injuries that I suffered during my deployment. The purpose of my letter is to report what I believe to be war crimes and violation of the laws of armed conflict that I personally witnesses while deployed in Iraq.

Upon arriving in Iraq in October of 2006 my unit was assigned to the ¼ Cavalry unit at Camp Prosperity. In March of 2007 I was sent back to my unit, B Company 2-12 at Camp Falcon. It was at Camp Falcon that I observed and was forced to participate in ugly and inhumane acts against the Iraqi citizens in our area of responsibilities. Below I list some of the incidents that took place.

Al Doura victim

In March of 2007, I witnessed SSG Platt shoot and wound an Iraqi national without cause of provocation. The Staff Sergeant said that he suspected the Iraqi be a “trigger” man. We had not been attacked and we found no evidence on the man to support the suspicion. As the Iraqi lay bleeding on the ground, PVT Smith requested to administer first aid to the Iraqi. SSgt Platt said no and “let him bleed out.” When SSG Platt walked away, Pvt Smith and PVT Mullins went to the Iraqi, dragged him to an alley, and applied first aid. They then drove him to the cache for further treatment.

In June of 2007 1SG Spry caused an Iraqi male to be stopped, questioned, detained, and killed. We had no evidence that the Iraqi was an insurgent or terrorist. In any event when we stopped he did not pose a threat. Although I did not personally witness the killing, I did observe 1sg Spry dismembering the body and parading of it while it was tied to the hood of a Humvee around the Muhalla neighborhood while the interpreter blared out warnings in Arabic over the loud speaker. I have a photo that shows 1SG Spry removing the victim’s brains.

Dead Al Doura man stretched like a deer across Humvee hood

On another occasion an Iraqi male was stopped by a team led by Sgt Rogers as he walked down an alleyway. The Iraqi was detained and questioned then with his hands tied behind his back, SGT Rogers skinned his face.

1ST Spry shot a young Iraqi teenager who was about 16 years old. The shooting was unprovoked and the Iraqi posed no threat to the unit. He was merely riding his bicycle past an ambush site. When I arrived on the scene I observed 1SGT Spry along with SSG Platt dismember the boy’s body.

In August of 2007, I responded to radio call from SGT Rogers reporting that he had just shot an Iraqi who was trying to enter through a hole that the platoon had blown in a wall to allow them observation of the area during a security patrol. When I arrived, I saw a one armed man who was still alive lying on a barricade. The man was about 30 years old. He had an old Ruger pistol hanging from his thumb. It was obvious to me that the pistol was placed there because of the way it hung from his thumb. The Iraqi was still alive when I arrived. I saw SGT Rogers shoot him twice in the back with hollow point bullets. The Iraqi was still moving. I was asking why they shot him again when I heard Sgt Hoskins say “he’s moving, he’s still alive.” SPEC Hoskins then moved to the Iraqi and shot him in the back of the head. SSG Platt and SGT Rogers were visibly excited about the kill. I saw them pull the Iraqi’s brains out as they placed him in the body bag. CPT Kirsey must have learned something about this incident because he was very upset and admonished the NCOs involved. On many occasions I observed SGT Temples, SSG Platt and SGT Rogers beat and abuse Iraqi teenagers, some as young as 14, without cause. They would walk into a house near areas where they suspected we had received sniper fire, then detain and beat the kids.

I have photos that support my allegations. I also have numerous other photos on a laptop PC that the unit illegally seized from me. I have requested its return but they have refused.

My experiences have taken a terrible toll on me. I suffer from PTSD and depression. I had no way to stop the ugly actions of my unit. When I refused to participate they began to abuse and harass me. I am still in treatment at the Balboa Naval hospital. I respectfully request that you investigate these matters, that you protect my safety by reassigning me to a different unit that is not located at Fort Carson, that you return my PC or, at least, seize it to protect the evidence on it, and that you issue a military protective order to prohibit the offending members of my unit from harassing, retaliating, or contacting me.

I have some photographs and some supporting documentation to these allegations.

U.S. Army Ranger John Needham, who was awarded two purple hearts and three medals for heroism, wrote to military authorities in 2007 reporting war crimes that he witnessed being committed by his own command and fellow soldiers in Al Doura, Iraq. His charges were supported by atrocity photos which, in the public interest, are now released in this video. John paid a terrible price for his opposition to these acts. His story is tragic.

CBS reported obtaining an Army document from the Criminal Investigation Command suggestive of an investigation into these war crimes allegations. The Army's conclusion was that the "offense of War Crimes did not occur." However, CBS also stated that the report was “redacted and incomplete; 111 pages were withheld.”

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bureau contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political,
human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues,
etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted
material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes.

We have already discussed in the first part of this analysis how the American geography dooms whoever controls the territory to being a global power, but there are a number of other outcomes that shape what that power will be like. The first and most critical is the impact of that geography on the American mindset.

This e-mail outlines and confirms the acts of espionage against Indonesia and Indonesians by Akiko Makino and the others involved both in Kobe University and in AI Lab at University of Airlangga, Surabaya; Bahasa Indonesia original follows English translation...

The 5th Estate has just purchased a library on H5N1 "Novel" virus pandemics, there are dozens of PDF and Exel documents we feel will assist you in saving lives following intentional releases of the H5N1 and now MERS viruses; we will begin by printing those that appear to be extremely relevant here: H5N1 Kobe-Kawaoka-Ernala series continues soon with more "Smoking Gun" e-mails from Teridah Ernala to The 5th Estate . . .